


the sweetest place

by Catznetsov



Series: sweetest place [1]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 2010 World Juniors, 2016 World Cup of Hockey, 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs, M/M, Pining, Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, Soulmates, Washington Capitals, graphic descriptions of hockey games you don't remember, only love for Karl!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21554905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catznetsov/pseuds/Catznetsov
Summary: Sometimes John used to wonder if people from the middle of the country spun around to find the shortest way to their soulmates.The first time his parents set his feet on the sand and let go, he'd set off chugging right toward the water. He must have been pretty slow, stumbling over wet sand and seaweed and his own baby feet, but what he remembers is a rushing, crashing joy he just had to run out and meet.Someone fished him out of a tidepool before his little head went under, but it doesn’t feel like it.
Relationships: Devante Smith-Pelly/Alexander Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov/T.J. Oshie/Vladimir Tarasenko, John Carlson/Michal Kempny
Series: sweetest place [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1553392
Comments: 31
Kudos: 103





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Only love for Karl!
> 
> The timeline of this fic is accurate, despite my efforts.

Sometimes John used to wonder if people from the middle of the country spun around to find the shortest way to their soulmates. In New Jersey you knew pretty quick if you were looking in towards land or out to the sea, but what’d you do if you were in Indiana and they were in India, if every direction seemed just as far off?

In New England it’s a bit of a heavy joke, but every old house has a widow’s walk for a reason, so even far back into the general metropolitan area where you can’t wander along the beaches, you can think you see the sea. 

The first time his parents set his feet on the sand and let go, John had set off chugging right toward the water. He must have been pretty slow, stumbling over wet sand and seaweed and his own baby feet, but what he remembers is a rushing, crashing joy he just had to run out and meet.

Someone fished him out of a tidepool before his little head had gone under, but it doesn’t feel like it. The space in his chest where a bond’s going to be still has an underwater echo, bogged down by the weight of all that way across the sea. The shortest route between their two points is still awfully far.

That was going to be alright though, John had decided, because John played hockey, John was going to be a hockey player, and not just that, but as he got bigger Coach asked him how he’d like to try a little more defense, and John liked that more than okay. So he was going to meet all kinds of people in lots of places, and one day he was going to need a partner. 

John has his direction now, and that’s all he’s ever needed to go, and go, and go.

The Draft is in Ottawa this year, which is fine. Maybe not as easy as New York or Toronto, but it’s still an international hub, so his partner won’t have too much of a hard time finding flights. Not exactly the most attractive introduction to North America, but that’s fine. John will be showing them home to his parents’ house in New Jersey pretty soon so that’d be an issue anyway.

They’ll be headed somewhere else together soon. John doesn’t know which team’s going to take them for sure, him in the first or high second round and then wherever his soulmate falls, probably later, but you never know. Everyone’s trying to be helpful saying John won’t need long in the American League, but in the mornings when he’s doing weights he can still feel the ache in his thighs, how much more he’s got to grow. He could go to the SHL or Russia, or one of those programs coming up in Asia and Australia, play against bigger men and get strong if his partner needs more time. He can show John a prettier city, introduce John to his parents when he’s ready, too.

John doesn’t feel much of anything at the hotel when they arrive, though that might be ambient Ottawa. His dad keeps texting to ask if he’s sure he isn’t nervous, but John had borrowed a second suit from one of the guys on the Ice and his dad has plenty of extra bland ties in case he slips to the next day, so he’s all set, really. What’s gonna happen will.

The Senators takes Sweden’s Karlsson instead of him, which John thinks probably serves him right. He watches Erik’s skinny ass crossing the stage and absolutely nothing changes. 

The Capitals pick John before the end of the first, and then another defenseman named Eric who John’s probably played at some point the next day. John wraps his hands in the red sweater in his lap for the ride home as his mom turns up the Eagles on the car radio, and he turns his cheek into the window until they hit the coast.

Indiana had been pretty nice, actually. John probably brought it on himself by wondering, but it turned out when he walked to school in the mornings for the end of senior year, a line of trees on one shoulder of the road and fields spilling out in frosted waves to his right, he still knew where the ocean was hiding over the horizon. Still, he’s happy to get up to London and then land in Hershey.

Saskatchewan feels like the biggest place he’s ever been, snowy fields echoing back the sky. It’s the day after Christmas and John has a scarf from his mother tucked into the new blue jacket, a jersey that matches it waiting inside as the bus pulls up to Sask Place. 

The USA boys all troop to Gordie’s statue, mumbling respects, before they catch sight of the Canadians, followed by the rest of the countries in their group. They take off hollering and John’s left looking at Gordie, elbow raised against the world. John scuffs his toe on the icy concrete.

“I have a good feeling,” he confesses. “I think it’s going to be a really good week.” 

Gordie just keeps grinning his road salt weathered grin, but John likes to think he counts as a little bit American for love, and would approve. It’s hard to think of anyone who fit their soulmate better than Mr. and Mrs. Hockey.

The other group is playing over in Regina, apparently, the Swedes eviscerating the Czechs 10-1 and Russia crushing Austria on the first day. Canada gets the ice first in Saskatoon, mugging Latvia for sixteen goals, and John sits through pregame meetings and then dinner half-convinced someone is drumming their knee anxiously next to him. 

“Come on then, boys,” he says. “Anybody scared? Smart. They’re fucking scary. So let’s scare them a little too.”

They only wind up beating Latvia by eleven, but John’s soulmate must not be Latvian, because he feels warm all week.

They have to watch Canada beat them from the bench, winning the last game of the preliminary round in the shootout. John pops his mouthguard out and chews on it. “Okay, so they’re good,” he says. “We just gotta score more goals.” He thinks his bond flutters hot and cool, like his partner’s sighing at him. 

The survivors of the preliminary rounds all meet in Saskatoon for the quarter finals. John feels like he can feel the buses making the two hour drive across the prairies, their engines thrumming in his stomach. He’s never been a nervous fidgeter, but his soulmate must be. John can’t cover his hands in reassurance yet, so he parks himself on the pavement in front of Gordie and presses his palms into the tops of his thighs.

Team Sweden’s bus rolls up, and John doesn’t feel much. Team Russia’s follows, releasing a flock of chattering boys. John straightens up and has to quickly catch the littlest one, who looks about eleven and is trying to show some kind of stick trick to his disbelieving friends. John sets him on his feet and gets a peep of thanks before they all stream on around him. Another bus is coming down the street and then John’s coach yells, calling him back inside.

John goes. 

The relegation games for the losing teams take up the mornings, and he chews his lip through team meeting and lunch until they can finally take the ice back. All he needs might be a minute longer, and that thought carries him through Finland in the quarterfinals with not sign of his soulmate, through Sweden, to Canada again in the gold medal game. Minutes tick down and the score up, their defense giving up the lead in the final minutes of the third to tie 5-5. Just a minute, John thinks, and goes out to score more goals.

The water of the Chesapeake Bay smells like hot shrimp and spilled motor oil when the sun hits it, but John can love that. Everything seems easier once he comes up from Hershey. He can get a place out in Arlington, swing down to the parks along the Potomac sometimes when he needs a moment or drive out to the reedy stretches of the undeveloped shore on off days.

Karl had the luck to bond with someone from BC, too, but he and his wife both seem to get it without explanation the way not everybody does. Sometimes they come fishing or swimming, and she says she doesn’t have a problem when John just needs someone solid enough to lean into. Karl’s freckled shoulder drying in the sun fits against his and she settles on John’s other side, sandy legs stretched out in front of them as the rising wind drives little waves in to land.

They fly out to for the Western Canadian road trip, always the heaviest weight on John’s bond, and this time it hits earlier than it ever has, something deep in his chest fogging up when they’re in the air over the middle of the continent. It feels like he needs to pop his ears, but stretched through his whole body in the dark as the boys all sleep on around him. And then it does pop. 

The rest of the Western sweep he feels alright, closer to normal than he ever has out here. When they get back on the plane it gradually grows fainter again, and then settles back to something that he pokes at like a loosening tooth and judges to be only a bit more strained than usual.

For whatever reason, John’s partner has moved further away. All John knows now is he’s on the opposite side of the world from Saskatchewan.

“You know I love you’re a romantic, buddy,” Karl says on the phone one night that summer, before he leaves. “Have we considered your soulmate might not play hockey, though?”

It feels like his voice should be tinny across the distance, but it isn’t. John has this, will always have this, a friend no matter how far apart because they had the chance to meet. It’s hard to imagine trading what’s happened since John didn’t meet his soulmate, and hard for part of John not to, too.

“Nah. I mean, what else would we have in common? Fishing? Old rock shows? I’m not that interesting, we’ve gotta love hockey,” John says, but the irony of what that must mean twists up his mouth. “I guess he’s just not, you know, that good at it.” 

On the ice he cycles through just about everyone they’ve got, and it’s fine. They work and they don’t work together about equally often. Half of that half the time it’s probably John’s fault. Even by the water his head aches. 

Snarls, who’s crossed Siberia for a soulmate, doesn’t love John’s romantic side.

“Get on SoulMatch or something, already,” he says, balling up a sock to throw. “Just do nothing, what is this?”

“What, so just because you have everything worked out already, you get to tell me what to do?” John says.

“Yes,” Snarls says. “Matty says say no.”

“Matty says that you should say no,” John clarifies. “Matty doesn’t say _no John doesn’t need help_, then.”

“No,” Snarls says, and John says over it, “I don’t even mind that much anyway.”

And the worst thing about his friends is that Snarls only says, “Okay,” and looks at him gently.

“Now I say that it does sound really fake. Please fight me on it so I don’t notice so much,” John says. 

“You want a partner real bad,” Dmitry says.

“I want lots of things I’m not gonna get,” John says, pulling his own socks off, but that’s just something it sounds like he would say. His problem, now Snarls’, is John’s always been a pretty easy guy. He wants a few things: a house by the quiet water, the rush of the game, someone to share both the highs and lows with. He’s pretty close to content, and that must be obvious to everyone who really knows him.

He breaks his ankle, and gets bored enough to let Matty install search apps on his phone. It’s not so bad, just snapshots of people he doesn’t know but he imagines trying to, flicking through their faces picturing what it would be like for them to grow familiar. 

Another season ends and John spends the summer with the Alzners, with his mom and dad, going up to grandma’s for the family reunion, old New England food and older New England people, all sitting by the water. One day he gets back and drives through the sunshine to his favorite cove on the Bay, wading out into the water, and realizes between all their travel he has no idea what direction to look in anymore.

The shine never wears off his gold medal, but John isn’t shocked by it anymore. He gets used to belonging when he pulls on a Team USA sweater. Between luck and the Caps’ deep playoff runs he’s gotten a call every year, but only worn the stars and stripes once overseas. 

He remembers being eighteen and ready to threaten to go to Russia. Some nights he’d told off the universe for its mistakes and gone to sleep angry, but then in the morning there’d been things to do. Maybe he was going to have to go to the KHL someday, but it was easier to need milk for breakfast today, to call somebody about a place in London and then Hershey, to rent a car until he knew what he wanted to buy. Morning after morning without much momentum still builds up a life of solid things.

Then the Olympics had swung around. John had spent what downtime they got in Sochi looking out the windows at Russia’s unsettling sea, or sitting with Nick in the stands when neither of them had games that day. Nick stared at his soulmate like he’d melt the glass between them and John ate all Nick’s chips. 

John’s own bond had been shorter than usual, but it was still tugging him bafflingly into the Black Sea, back toward home. Every now and then he’d felt flutters of something bitter from it, or maybe that was his roommate breaking the Soviet-style shower again.

The NHL can’t fuck its own schedule, so he can go to the World Cup. Team USA’s showcase games swing around a couple American rinks including a stop at home before they head up to Toronto to meet the rest of the European teams. Alex’s Team Russia and the others only got to start in St. Petersburg, Sweden, and Prague before coming over to give the US and Canada showcase opponents, but the NHL’s not about to waste time promoting their World Cup to the world, so John won’t do the same and visit them. 

No travel means he won’t be getting any closer to where his soulmate lives in Central Europe or Central Asia. It’s silly to think someone John’s age will really break onto a national team now, but John still slings his bag over his shoulder and steps out of the airport terminal into Toronto’s huge blue night wondering.

He and TJ play a matinee against Chara’s Frankenstienian Team Europe to start the tournament, then cede the ice so Canada can crush the Czech Republic six nothing. Their preliminary games are on alternating days from Nick and Kuzy and O over in Group B, so they have plenty of time to grumble over their first loss and then go heckle. The chips aren’t as good as the freaky pickle ones in Russia, but that’s fine.

“John,” TJ says, several times. “I’m just not hearing the passion, babe.”

“Sorry,” John says, trying to work out a way he can look at his own tongue. He really, really wants more chips and some heady floral flavor he eventually identifies as beer. 

At least Europe almost loses to the Czechs the next night, and TJ makes sure they don’t look too shabby against Canada. This week everything feels like it starts with ‘at least’, more like resignation than John’s usual sense of calm.

The games matter as much as any but not, honestly, as much as some. The last game for the US is maybe the least significant game of John’s career, since it’s only going to decide who lost worst. John goes into it with someone else’s sense of impending doom anyway. 

He’s pretty sure he’s not just reading the room but drums on the bench for everybody’s attention and reminds them they’re there to have fun anyway.

One of the Czech defensemen from the Coyotes decides to have a little more fun than them and score a hat trick, so they do lose. John’s ankle aches and his soulmate feels much worse about it all than he does, so John guesses at least he’s not bonded to Michálek.

John turns his cheek into the double glass of the airplane window, the pressure change as they start to pull apart confirming they’d been close if he wasn’t sure before. His soulmate is now thinking longingly about chocolate. “You must be the most dramatic person I’ve never met,” John tells the retreating ground, and swears he hears someone blow a sigh.

The next year of John’s life is confusingly nice. His bond doesn’t feel nearly as long as it used to, and it’s as if the waterlogged length of it has finally dried. He feels pleasantly hot where it sits in his chest, like he’s drying off too, in the sun on warm sand. The problem is that whenever he tries to turn his face into the warmth it seems to tug in a different direction.

It drifts north and south, almost always out west of him until they fly out on another road trip and it spins over to the east for a little while. He expects to pass back over it when they return but instead the bond shrinks shorter and thicker as they approach DC. 

It’s not as if his soulmate is about to meet him on the concourse, but John can feel him flutter around the East Coast for a few days as John rests up. He stands in the kitchen catching up on dishes and some part of his attention is almost tasting the cold breeze over New York Harbor, spilled coffee, seaweed, and road salt soaking down from Boston, and a parody of homesickness he hasn’t felt in years as his potential soulmate must be in New Jersey. 

“I’m not wrong, right?” he asks Nicky, who looks flatly at him.

“No,” he says, “probably not. That’s what it feels like.” So John must have a partner in the NHL, traveling too. It’s thrilling and makes him a little seasick to learn when he’s almost thirty that your heart really does feel like it’s spinning, the way he’d pictured when he was four. At least it stops for the summer, his soulmate going home while John stays in Virgina to renovate his kitchen and fuck around on the Bay.

O starts the season on fire, and by February they’re all toasted. John’s gone from sunny warm to cold all winter, packs an extra hat for the road trip on the half-baked sense his soulmate hasn’t been wearing one. He only gets colder the closer they get to Chicago, but then, it’s fucking Chicago. 

It’s better as they suit up and head to United Center. There’s hockey tonight, and he’s going to play, which is ridiculous, because John always plays, as long as he has two whole ankles to stand on.“You were sad, like, five minutes ago,” John mutters, and his soulmate screams enthusiasm in his head. 

There’s at least ten minutes in the first where they might win the game. That passes pretty quick. Seabrook’s game hasn’t had real teeth in years, but the forwards are tripping and flipping the puck whenever he and his partner are on the ice. Behind John Braden’s hissing at them all to wake up and shape up, but even his goalie can’t drown out John’s partner’s joy just to be skating again. 

John’s partner of the moment hauls him back into it, and over the boards to replace poor Brooksie, who’s been shot-blocking again. John takes one across his calf, shoulders a couple hits while Snarls is getting slammed too. Brooksie’s giving the thumbs up on the bench and Coach looks suspicious but sends him out to get smacked again. They keep going like that. Toews scores and Tommy evens it, but Braden’s screeching like a tea kettle and it’s clear that’s about as much as they’ve got in them to give him. 

Jay muffs a rare face-off, leaving Anisimov to work it around to Seabrook. Brooksie eats another one, and the rebound goes to Braden, who drops it. Chicago tosses it around their formation a few times while Seabrook’s new partner sneaks higher up the wall and hovers there. When the puck bounces by and Braden looks busy he picks a chance to hammer it. Braden gets back up for the stop, because he’s divine, but John’s stomach bubbles with a raw and petty indignation as the puck skitters away.

“What?” John says.

“Go go _go_,” Snarls repeats, and tips him over the boards. The game doesn’t get better after that, no thanks to John. 

When it’s over he stays as long as he can in the hallway while the other guys pass him, scuffing his feet. He can feel his soulmate’s happy with a sour twist, maybe wishing he’d gotten on the board. John’s a little rough from the loss himself, but if he could he’d point out none of those goals would have come without such driving defensive play. Chicago doesn’t hug as much as the Caps do, taking laps instead and starting the whole postgame TV routine for the stars while the fans scream. John’s soulmate steps out early, skating back toward their locker room.

John tries a little wave.

He gets a flash of the sweetest eyes he’s ever seen on a real person and not a china doll, before they crinkle into a smile. His soulmate lifts a hand to wiggle his fingers tentatively back at John.

Then his eyes go huge again as he must think it’s all a horrible mistake and John was waving to somebody behind him. He bolts. 

John’s left eyeing the mouth of the other hallway, once again with a direction and no fucking where to go. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we pause the pining for a plot point

John stands around in the hallway until he gets cold, then turns around and trips into Kuzy. The difference in their body mass is enough that Kuz pops up and John has to lurch to catch and set him back on the ground.

“Sorry,” John says, patting him.

“No worries,” Kuz says. He doesn’t believe Australian isn’t it’s own language, and has been making the rookie teach him. “I get used to it. What’s up? Besides me.”

“I just met my soulmate and he doesn’t believe I’m me,” John says, experimentally.

Kuz darts back, like that rattled him more than most things do, then uses the new angle to inspect John first with one eye and then the other. “Serious business,” he says. 

“Yeah,” John says.

“Thank you for sharing with me,” Kuz says. “For serious thing, we all need help sometimes. For this—we need Teej.”

John says, “Do we?” but that’s about all it takes. 

“Baby! What’s up?” TJ asks, skidding down the hallway. “Hi, I’m here, what’s the problem?” 

Kuz points a finger at John.

“Rude,” John says. “But whatever. I just met my soulmate, and, well.” 

“Oh congratulations! Is he cute? Must be, look at you smiling. Aw, I’m happy for you, buddy,” TJ says. “And I’m guessing there’s a good reason you’re hanging around this hallway alone right now?”

“He plays for Chicago,” John says. His soulmate is showering right now, the hiss of water in John’s ears if he hunts for it, and feeling let down about something he can’t name. John gives him a mental pat on the back, which feels awkward, so he gives up. “I could tell, but I guess he didn’t know I was me instead of some stranger up in the crowd.”

TJ thinks on that for a while. “That sucks,” he says, with real empathy but about as much concern as John deserves right now.“Did you get his name?”

John had mostly gotten eyes and a sense of polite terror. “Didn’t really get to talk, Timothy.”

“If only we all wore name tags,” TJ says.

“No one likes a smarty pants,” John says. “It’s harder to see behind a guy when you’re defending. I guess I saw his number. The new guy they’ve got with Seabrook.”

“For sure people like me. You may be in the game but I’m still winning at soulmates,” TJ says. “Aw, he was cute! And you know my nuts shrivel up when I see JT’s mustache, so if I was still feeling it he’s gotta be cute.”

John thinks about his soulmate’s shocking eyes again, little pink mouth pressed so tight it looked like he was trying to make any scrap of color disappear. John had wanted to ask what that was about and reach out too, see if he could coax his soulmate to smile and how that would feel under his callused fingertips. “We all know about your nuts,” he says. “So, uh, did you catch my soulmate’s name?”

“No,” TJ says. 

Kuzy coughs like he’s about to bring up a hairball. Nothing in TJ’s sweetly unhelpful expression changes, but his whole body bends toward his soulmate, and Kuzy shines down at him, a small sun pleased with the attention of flowers.

“Okay, okay,” TJ concedes. “This is big. D-man, you said?”

“Right,” John says, still adrift but recognizing TJ’s point like a buoy out ahead of him. “From there…I can figure this out. I need Todd on this one.”

Coach Todd is in the far corner of the locker room, looking at something on Tim’s iPad with Matt while the rest of the corps slump through stripping off. Coach B’s at the front, pacing through the pointed quiet of the forwards. Matt meets John’s eyes long enough to shrug, and nods to Todd before sidling away so John can take the spot.

“Breakouts?” he asks Todd, glancing at the iPad and starting in on his laces.

“Panda cam from the National Zoo, actually,” Todd says. “So. John. What’s up?”

“Not my conversion rate on those breakouts, for sure. But can we talk about my game later? I gotta talk about Chicago.”

“Sure,” Todd says, slow, looking between him and the iPad like he’s not so sure John doesn’t need a panda intervention.

“What do you and Tim have on their guy Number 6? Out with Seabrook on the left side mostly.” Most of the times they’d gotten shelled. John tries to stick his hands in his pockets and remembers he’s still wearing hockey pants. He startles again when something warm flutters against the nape of his neck, as if someone’s just behind him, then realizes it’s in the back of his mind. His soulmate just perked up enough to poke him, worried John isn’t as bold as usual. 

Todd cuts the feed. “What?” he says, still holding Tim’s iPad protectively in front of him.“No, nothing much.”

John has to squint at him. “Are you being shady?”

“Of course not,” Todd says. “Why’d you ask?”

“Because I’d like to know his name, because he’s my soulmate,” John says. His soulmate is still fluttering at him, but tt’s getting stranger to say it out loud, not easier: strange to use it in place of a name when the person he’s talking about doesn’t yet. “Are you sure? He’s good.”

“Oh, no shit,” Todd says. His expression twitches from shifty to supremely smug. “Sure, Number 6, left side, that’d be Kempný.”

That constellation of consonants sounds like it could be what John saw flash past a couple times as the Caps’ corps got smoked. “Thank you,” he says. “Okay. Uh, well then.”

They sit just at the edge of the rest of the room’s cloud of gloom for a few more minutes. 

“How’re you doing there, John?” Todd checks.

“Okay, Coach. Confused, I guess,” John says, as he’s been trained. “I mean, you spend so long waiting on a guy, and everybody says you’ll find each other when you’re ready, so you just keep wondering what you haven’t done yet. Now it’s like I’m past ready and I’ve thought too much about how it will feel to feel it.”

Todd nods. He shuffles the iPad between his hands, glances back at the front of the room. “Sometimes the only fix for lost time is more of it, I’m afraid,” he says. “You’ll be good for each other, and the rest can come from there.”

“_Do_ you have a dossier on—my soulmate?” John asks. 

“Strictly speaking, no,” Todd says. “Sorry, Johnny. I already passed my recommendations on to Barry, who gave the list to Brian and Ted, who—well. They’re angling to add a little to our corps before the deadline, I’m sure you guessed that. This late we don’t want to mess up you boys’ chemistry, so they like a little insight from the room before bringing anybody in. They just need O’s vote on this one.”

John says, “Oh.”

“So if it makes you feel better,” Todd says, clapping his shoulder with the air of someone well aware it doesn’t, “your boy laid some pretty good ones on Alex tonight. So you might get time to work your shit out sooner than you think.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> up next...a list of Czech pastry I'd rather be eating right now, and John Carlson's sex appeal. 
> 
> ('Sad' wasn't enough of a characterization for me to write Miki before. So we're rolling with 'sad, horny, and hungry')


	3. Chapter 3

Sometimes, more often as he’s gotten older, Michal’s tongue tastes of salt, as if an unknown hand has gripped his hair and plunged his head into the ocean. Everything nearby goes more numb than silent. The sounds and shapes of people waving their hands and talking to or at or over him turn thick, just pressure all around him like the weight of water. As soon as he breaks the surface sound will return with a roar, but for those moments everything that should be close and easily comprehensible becomes a blur, except the taste on his tongue, the sensation of his body, and something out of sight in the filtered light that he knows with the certainty of a shipwreck.

Maybe that’s what’s wrong right now, or maybe slivovice is just like that, plum sweet on top then bitter from the pits. Richard pours two more, and toasts with them when Michal crinkles his nose.

“What if they call?” Michal asks, as if that isn’t the reason he’s sitting up late and tense. As opposed to most nights, when he’s up late and tense over nothing much.

“Woah, woah,” Richard says. “None of that, we said.”

“Right,” Michal says. “_When_ they call--fuck. I shouldn’t be drunk when they call. Should I?”

“They’re going to call,” Richard says, which doesn’t answer anything, but Michal repeats it. He gets two thumbs up, and another glass. Michal takes it, resists the urge to swish it between his teeth, then decides to do it anyway, searching for salt and only finding overripe plums. He’s not sure if he’s disappointed; he never is.

Today’s a day he got to play. Those are pretty good days, until the coffee kicks in. Around when he’s getting settled on the L train rushing toward practice he usually remembers to worry. The more games he misses, the more it makes sense that Coach might not give him another. But if he does play, then he might make some mistake, and that will be why.

Today he woke up from an underwater daze and realized it doesn’t matter what Coach thinks anymore. All of a sudden he’s playing for strangers, trying to guess what will impress some other GM long enough to pick up his contract. It doesn’t make sense that feels easier than impressing someone whose preferences he’s heard loud and clear all year, but maybe it’s just that it won’t matter for long. Even if another team drops his contract after this season, at least he’ll land far away from Chicago. All of a sudden this morning it felt like a future was flying towards him again. He lets Richard pour another glass.

His phone rings.

“Jesus,” Michal says. “Oh. I’ve had half a bottle of slivovice, I can’t talk now, what was I thinking.”

“Slivovicu,” Richard corrects him, and Michal makes a face. “You talk funny all the time anyway, what’s the difference?”

“They don’t know that,” Michal hisses. “Wait, that’s perfect, you’re right.” He fumbles the phone, trying not to answer it.

“Oh, no I’m not,” Richard says.

“Please? They can’t tell us apart anyway,” Michal wheedles, pushing the phone at him.

“Not true. I’m the pretty one,” Richard says, but he swipes accept and holds the phone up. “Hello, this is Michael,” he says, in a breathy singsong accent that Michal would pinch him for if he didn’t have to chew on his own fingers right now.

“Yes, sir,” Richard says, in response to something on the other end, and makes a slashing motion at Michal to leave his cuticles be. Michal makes clawing hands back at him, and Richard shakes his head. “Traded,” he over-enunciates. “Yes—yes sir.”

“Give me,” Michal hisses.

“No—thank you,” Richard says. “Of course.”

Michal scrabbles across the tabletop and snatches Richard’s glass, downing one shot of plum brandy and then his own. Richard crinkles his nose at him and Michal shrugs back, which makes the room tilt more than it should. He sits back and starts spinning one of the empty glasses as gently as he can.

“Of course,” Richard says, and then with a spark in his voice. “I guess weather will be nicer there,” before the other end cuts the call.

The glass keeps tipping, but he’ll get it next time. “So what did they say?” Michal asks, and wobbles it again.

Richard sets the phone down, drawing his breath between his teeth for a minute. “Washington wanted you,” he says.

“No,” Michal says. “What? Who?”

“You. Yes. The Capitals. Traded,” Richard says, and laughs.

Michal tries to kick him under the table, but just swings his foot instead, so he lets himself slide down in his chair. “Don’t start again,” he says.

“Give me my phone, I’m telling everyone we know,” Richard says, already texting on Michal’s.

Michal flops more pathetically, tipping his face up to the ceiling. “They’ll probably send me to the American League,” he tries. “They have enough good defenders already.” That’s a mistake.

“Oh, don’t be sad Miki, I’m sure you’ll stay up long enough to say hello to your crush,” Richard says. “Or did you have plans to do that next decade?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Michal says.

Richard holds up the phone, showing a text that says **XD XD XD ASK HIM HOW HE spilled rootbeer down his hoodie before we got to ice side to say good game gold medal boys and ran away and then bus left**

**he cried**

“Radko doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Michal says.

Richard looks between the phone and him several times, and starts typing.

“I didn’t spill it, Kuba did behind me, and it got in my hair,” Michal admits in a rush. “I couldn’t talk to the Americans all sticky.”

Richard’s eyebrows go wandering, but all he says is, “_Talk_.”

“Yes, finally you speak Czech correct,” Michal says, instead of acknowledging him.

“Touchy. You from Prague now or what?” Richard says. “They have a Prague boy, don’t they?” He goes back to his phone to google it, but gets another ding of an incoming text on Michal’s and stops halfway to read it. “Radko says he wasn’t at the World Cup, better ask Jaškin. You have his number?”

Michal tries to remember. “Probably not.”

“I found it. He saved it in your phone with three smilies, the Russian flag, and a tyrannosaur. He’s super nice, I need to jot that down,” Richard says, glancing up. “No judgement, but do you like ever text anybody back?”

“No,” Michal says. He weighs having to talk about how he doesn’t talk about anything much anymore against talking about his inappropriate crush, given the odds that Dimitrij is nice enough to talk to Richard and too nice to realize any World Cup stories he’s somehow bothered to hold onto will just be ammunition. He’s willing to throw his dignity under for the diversion. “I wouldn’t call it a crush.”

“What would you say? Your defensive inspiration? Your muse?” Richard stops to giggle, and take another shot. “That doesn’t make sense, you don’t even play much alike, do you?”

“You don’t have any idea what we’re doing behind you, do you,” Michal says, accepting the glass that Richard slides back to him with suspicion.

“Not a bit,” Richard confirms. “So, tell me about it again?”

He’s doing that on purpose, Michal’s sure. He only says it to coax Michal to talk, and Michal knows that, can feel it working. He’d like to tell him what it’s like defending, the rush of action settling into a single perfect and overwhelming purpose. Michal’s never seen anyone who seemed as clear as that afternoon in Canada, after they finished losing their own game and were allowed back up to the stands to watch the Americans play.

He remembers forgetting to breathe as he perched beside Radko in the bleachers, as if his head were under water and the only thought left in it was praying for just a minute more. Michal had never been much of a scorer before, but he see the pieces of the oncoming goal pull together, magnetic, until it crashed home. He doesn’t want to be a scorer much more now, won’t be even if he did, but he admires that sense of direction.

But Michal doesn’t have the confidence to find the words in any language for that, so he just shrugs.

“Well, you could do worse,” Richard says, mercifully. “If you like blonds. I’m not available, so I suppose he’s a solid second place.”

Michal’s mouth is pure bitter from the pits, uncut by salt. “It’s not like that,” he says.  “How old are we now? We’re just getting to the show now but this is National League, North America, Capitals are famous. He probably already found a soulmate.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Richard Panik is Slovak, while Kempný is Czech from Moravia (and has a strong "country"-ish accent that he was apparently bullied in the minor leagues). I've gone for trying to capture the sense of a bilingual conversation over the specific vocabulary, but the two languages are mostly mutually intelligible: you can watch a cute video of a Czech and Slovak trying to demonstrate (and just getting drunk on plum brandy and forgetting their own languages instead) here https://news.expats.cz/czech-language/speak-czech-speak-slovak/


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of Michal and John's story, for the moment. It's a happy ending, but I want to note that this point of view character has no self-esteem and some anxious tendencies, including negative (but not outright insulting) self-talk. Writing this story has been rough personally, so take care of yourselves out there, I hope you enjoy, and I'll be moving on to one of the new pairings in this part of the series soon.

The Capitals do have a boy from Prague after all. He meets Michal at the airport, holding an enthusiastic eagle drawn on a paper napkin and one of the Capitals’ Russians. Michal squeaks his suitcase to a stop and tries to greet them in English. It’s unlikely they’re there for anyone else, but after last game he has a lingering horror of talking to the wrong person. He cringes whenever he remembers how he must have looked, waving like a fan.

Instead he gets a chirping “Ahoj!” as if Prague Boy has just noticed Michal sidling up to them. A coffee is being pressed into his hands, and his luggage taken away. “I’m Jakub, I’m going to love having you, dude, this is the best. Do you know any Russian?”

That must be where the napkin came from, Michal thinks, wrapping his hands around it. Did they buy it just to get that for a sign, or get it for him and then think of the sign as another gift? He’s already lagging behind, and he hasn’t met a fraction of the whole team yet. “No,” he says, stuffing his ragged English away and returning to Czech. “Sorry. Should I?”

Jakub pumps his fist. “Perfect. Don’t let him pretend otherwise,” he says, leaning in close to Michal like he’s telling a secret and jerking his thumb back at Kuznetsov, who doesn’t acknowledge him. When Michal catches his eye on accident he turns his head side to side, inspecting Michal from one sharp blue eye and then the other. Michal thinks about the chickens on his family’s farm spotting a vulnerable beetle.

“Yes, hello,” Kuznetsov says in English, linking their arms together so Michal doesn’t have to find some place to set the coffee down. “Little V gonna drive you to Alex’s, and I help. Drink that, nap later, all the boys wanna meet you in the morning. Yes?’

Grateful for the direction, Michal says, “Yes,” and lets himself be tugged onward. They stuff him into the backseat of a shiny silver car with all his things, Kuznetsov alighting in the front passenger seat as Jakub takes the wheel. Michal feels preemptively carsick.

Even in February, everything in this city seems sunnier than home. They follow a wide avenue out from the airport, gray glass windows on either side slicked with a brief rain but already reflecting a warm light filtering through the clouds. The medians are dotted with rose bushes, a green Michal can barely believe. The people at the crosswalks are wrapped in rain jackets and bright scarves, walking without any rush. Jakub doesn’t hit any of them. After a few minutes Michal rolls the window down an inch, hoping the fresh air will help, and it brings the faint taste of rain, warm earth, pepper and fry oil from diners they’re passing.

“Nap when we get there. Just a minute,” Kuznetsov chides him from the front seat. “Jakub, no, turn. Other turn.” They’re into residential areas now, the bushes fanning out on either side into shrubbery and then graceful trees that hide the growing houses.

Michal remembers scoring the first goal in St. Petersburg, in the preliminaries before they all flew to North America for the World Cup. The crowing satisfaction from the Czech bench sputtered out as soon as they gave up a penalty, Dmitrij slinking to the box as monsters spilled over the boards.

Michal was left on the ice. Kuznetsov had clocked his and Roman’s defense and cracked it from side to side, leaving an easy road for Tarasenko to bulldoze to the goal. Either of them could be the indisbutable star on any other team, but when it was Team Russia, when it’s the Capitals, your eyes didn’t have time to take in one before another blinded you.

Alexander Ovechkin lives in a red brick house with a bizarrely normal yard. Jakub pulls up out front and Kuznetsov reminds him how to park while pulling out his phone. Neither of them make a move toward their doors but Jakub checks the rearview mirror and sends Michal a smile, so he sits still and sips his coffee until the phone rings. Kuznetsov chirps something Michal can’t follow into it before hanging up and waving at them all to get out of the car already.

A minute later the front door opens with a welcoming clatter, revealing a man with a worn Prince t-shirt and radiant smile who isn’t Alexander Ovechkin.

“I let the dogs into the backyard, he’ll keep busy chasing them around for a while,” he says. “Hey there,” as Kuznetsov bustles in to air-kiss his cheeks. “You found New Guy, good job. Hey, sorry for sending the goon squard to get you, thought it would be less stress for you than Alex right off the bat. I’m Devante, come on in.”

Jakub and Kuznetsov squish Michal through the door, pausing to remove their shoes and then rushing for what must be the kitchen. Michal offers his hand to Devante. “I’m Michal.”

“You go for hugs?” Devante asks, and when Michal hesitates he holds out his arms to show.

“I…don’t know,” Michal says.

“It’s all good, you just want to be firm with the boys right away, or they’ll, you know,” Devante says. Michal doesn’t.

Devante doesn’t seem to mind the pause but eyes him up and down then wiggles his hands invitingly, so he says, “Okay,” and lets himself be hauled in. It’s loose and warm and Devante’s t-shirt smells of bergamot-rich Novaya Zarya cologne he remembers from the locker room in Omsk.

“Devante, my pasta,” Jakub wails in the distance, so Devante shows Michal through several largely empty cream-colored rooms to a biege kitchen, where the pieces of a dinner are half assembled and Kuznetsov is holding a massive serving bowl out of Jakub’s reach over his head.

Devante comforts the rookie and Michal stands around until Kuznetsov hands him the trough full of pasta primavera to hold as he takes the serving spoon and starts scooping out the cherry tomatoes. He gets a piece of penne by accident and offers it to Michal, who is just wondering how to accept if his hands are full when the back door squeaks open and Alexander Ovechkin appears, heralded by chorus of dogs.

His expression, sunny without the thunderous eyebrows Michal’s seen from a distance, cracks into a rainbow smile as he takes in the chaos in the kitchen, now magnified by five German shepherds and one glossy black lab. Jakub steps aside to allow Ovi in to kiss Devante’s temple as Devante settles an easy arm around his waist.

“You got me New Guy!” Ovi announces.

“_We_ went to the airport. I drive—” Jakub starts. Kuznetsov scoops up a particularly big broccoli and stuffs it in Jakub’s mouth. Then he gently lifts the bowl out of Michal’s hands and replaces it on the counter, relieving him of any implication in carb-based crimes.

“Yes, you’re welcome, anyway, Alex, this is Mikhail, doesn’t speak Russian,” he says, nailing the consonant Michal can’t remember hearing since he arrived in America and only sharpening the vowels a bit. Jakub’s eyes go wide in offense before he reconsiders and shoots Michal a smile and a thumbs up, still chewing. Apparently the fact Kuznetsov isn’t bullying him should be counted as win, although Michal can’t really believe his complaining. He’s never had a mentor, unless you counted Radko, who would rather not be, but it seems nice.

He says, “Hi,” to Ovi, who smiles at him and glances down at Devante for approval before crossing the kitchen, hands out. Michal nods and is enveloped in the biggest hug of his life. He dares a pat to Ovi’s incomparable trapezius, and then the warmth after worrying all day turns the air being squeezed out of him in a yawn. He remembers distantly he left his coffee in Kuznetsov’s car. Ovi laughs and releases him breathless and tinged with bergamot.

“Sleep later, okay? I made dinner,” Ovi says, looking around and realizing his pasta isn’t on the counter where it should be. Kuznetsov pretends to stick out his tongue and reveals a tomato.

Dinner is nice, when Michal doesn’t think about Alexander Ovechkin cooking it for him. The dogs settle in a carpet across the kitchen floor, their noses on folded paws kept just outside the tiled dining area. Kuznetsov mostly makes statements, then watches if Michal will confirm or deny, which takes the pressure off him for conversation. Jakub is texting someone under the table and breaks in occasionally with flutters of Czech that the others seem to indulge.

Once they’re done Kuznetsov collects his charge, kissing everyone goodbye at the front door, and then instead of turning around Devante slips his own shoes on. Michal realizes he isn’t going to stay the night. He doesn’t want to bother him by saying ‘help’, so he just says, “Um.”

Devante glances back, and pats his arm. “You’re fine. There’s practice first thing, go get some rest. Jake took your bags up already. Alex can drive you both in in the morning.”

That might be less a promise than a threat, but Devante laughs at the face he makes and leaves.

Ovi and a sample of dogs show Michal upstairs, and he showers and tucks himself into Ovi’s guest bed. He clicks off the light and feels a shadowy warm weight settle across his feet not long after.

Everyone in hockey agrees Ovechkin has been searching for his soulmate as long as for his Cup. There’s no other way the two of them could be comparable, but if Ovi can find who he’s waiting for, Michal imagines maybe he will too, as the dog beside him runs some dream trail and starts to snore. The hum of the heater and the occasional roar of a highway in the distance might as well be breaking waves, and Michal listens until sleep closes over his head.

Ovechkin doesn’t talk much in the morning, but he smiles whenever Michal looks to him and stops to get him another coffee on the drive in. Michal tries to thank him with a smile in return and watches the growing buildings they’re passing. The practice rink greets them with a cheery red banner spilling down its concrete face, and Ovi turns into the parking garage and drives all the way to the top, arriving in a burst of early sunlight.

Ovi tosses him his bag from the trunk but takes his coffee, which Michal understands once they’re through the glass doors and a wave of Capitals breaks over them. Ovi wades in and starts pulling boys out, holding them up one at a time to show Michal. “This is Nate, Little Steve,”who towers over Nate, “Tommy D,” another big brunette with a toothy smile who Michal can’t tell apart from Steve until he pops his helmet on to show the ominous 43, “Jay, Maddy, Matty, Dmitry. Devante, you meet already!” but who still gets a good-morning kiss from Ovi and gives Michal a half-hug, “Where’s Backy go? Holtsy, say hey.”

“Hey man. I’m Braden,” Braden Holtby says, holding out a fist. Michal taps it, feeling faint. “Nicky’s already out there watching the Knockouts.”

Ovi whines like one of his own dogs and drags Michal on before he can ask, but it clicks when he sees the ice.

The hulking figure of Nicklas Bäckström, still in grey warmup hoodie and shorts, is hanging over the boards to jeer. Two blue defenders, one much thicker than the other, hold down the net. A red blur bolts by, then another and another, resolving as they fan out into the shapes of Tarasenko, Kuznetsov, and Oshie, circling their prey.

Kuznetsov glides down the right side, stutter stops and starts again as he tosses the puck up and down the line. He’s only playing, seeing what the defenders will give him, but when he flirts at a turn the right defenseman charges after him, starting a game of chase. The skinnier defender does a double take and sprawls back to fill the open space.

Michal is just reaching the rail and leaning out to see more when someone calls his name behind them. He turns to find a tall man with thinning hair and a wide smile.

“Hey,” he says, when Michal steps away from Ovi’s side. “I’m Todd, I’m the defense coach here. Let’s talk in my office for a minute, before Alex makes you talk to all the guys.”

Michal follows him back through the room, prompting another round of hellos and waves from the growing group of guys getting ready, all of which he tries to greet with an unprepossessing smile in case he’s just stepped between friends.

Coach points him through a door and shuts it behind them, closing a quiet envelope around them against the commotion outside. He squeezes behind his desk and starts shuffling stacks of printouts, notes, and what look like children’s puzzle books, leaving Michal to stand.

“I won’t take too much time, I know being new this time of year you’ll want all you can get to catch up. First, I wanted to say—what are you doing?”

Michal stops peeking, and starts to hold up his hands to show they’re empty.

“The couch is for sitting on. Do you know how long it took to find one wide enough for you boys? John complained for a year that his butt was too big to fit the old one, and then for another about how I made him carry that down here.”

Michal sits.

“There.” Coach settles the papers and eyes him. Michal tries to look agreeably comfortable. It really is a nice couch. “I wanted to say it’s good to meet you. I’m a big fan of your hockey.”

’Thank you’ is the first and most frequent thing Michal’s said in English. He almost forgets it.

“Second, so you know, Barry and I don’t bench anyone we don’t have to. If you’re here to play, I’ll promise you’re going to play.”

Michal sits bolt straight. “I am,” he says. “I, um—”

The door bounces open, only to be replaced by the sunny bulk of star blueliner and Michal’s sincerest teenage fantasy, John Carlson. His curls looks like they’re getting a little long this late in the season, bright against the blue scrimmage jersey he still has on. His eyes, when he notices Michal, are even bluer. It’s a really nice color for him.

“Hey Todd, I need…help about a thing,” he says, the sentence winding to an odd stop.

“Just a minute, John,” Coach says.

“Right, yeah. Hi,” he says, still looking at Michal.

Michal might as well be breathing the ocean. He gives up on air and offers John a little finger wave instead of squeaking at him. For some reason that makes John send him a long, slow smile.

“John,” Coach says, and snaps his fingers. “Out.”

“Sure thing. See you later,” he says, and backs out. Michal isn’t entirely sure who that was addressed to. The door swings closed behind him.

Coach squints at Michal. “You see my problem,” he says.

Michal takes an experimental breath. This time it goes okay, which is good. It’s too early for one of his underwater headaches, not when he needs people here to like him, or, it seems, somehow, to keep liking him the way they’re already willing to. “Sorry. Problem?”

Coach leans across his desk. “Look,” he says. “Let’s be real. Other coaches might argue with me but I really believe I’m lucky, here, to have the best damn 1D in the League. I’ve gotten to follow since he was a kid and you know what, he’s a real good player, and a great kid. And he’s got no sense whatsoever for when to make an entrance or an exit.”

“Not _that_ bad,” Michal says. “Just needs a partner who knows what he’s gonna do and, er,” and he forgets the word, he should know when trainers use it all the time, just seesaws his hands like a scale.

“Yes,” Coach Todd says. “Exactly. He drags everyone into copying him, instead of holding onto their own sense. He’s wrecked enough rookies’ confidence. I can only pair him with Dmitry because Dmitry doesn’t care what anyone else does. So you see how I’m hoping you can help me out here. Like I said, if it isn’t a good fit but you play your best you won’t lose your spot on our roster, I’ll give you a different partner. In fact, I’d like to start you on the second pair with Matty, so you have a little time to watch and get to know each other, like you said.”

“That’s not quite how I said it,” Michal says in limp Czech, then lurches upright again to apologize. Coach’s soft face doesn’t change, just looks between him and the throw pillows. Some instinctive voice is telling Michal Coach is more bothered about that than about Michal speaking something he can’t understand. Michal relaxes back into them.

“I try,” he offers in English. “Whatever, what partner you need me…I just want to play.”

Coach nods, seemingly content. Michal scans his face and can’t tell why his instincts are twinging again, unsatisfied. He tells Michal to go on and get to know the boys. Michal can’t imagine ever managing that and at the same time suspects he’s going to get known whether he wants it or not. Michal nods and smiles and leaves, all at once, so he doesn’t really see the door he’s opening and trips through it.

He catches himself with a hand on the wall, catches his breath. He leans there just long enough that he has no excuse when someone says, “Hi,” and waves a hand by his face.

Michal clings tight to the wall, then realizes he must look like an unhappy cat and lets go. When he turns around John Carlson is smiling at him again.

“Hi,” Michal parrots.

“I’m John,” John says, like that’s news.

His hand is still too close to Michal for anyone’s comfort, so Michal takes it, shakes it, and deposits it back in John’s personal space, which seems to be enormous.

He’s built like a statue, but at least he doesn’t tower over Michal the way he would have when they were teenagers. It helps he’s barefoot, when Michal thinks to check, still wearing hockey socks over white athletic socks that make his feet look comparatively small and cute. Finding out he’s one of those guys who don’t wear socks inside their skates might have finally killed Michal’s attraction, which would have been good for coexisting on a team together, but he can’t complain.

“What do you,” John says, and stops out of time again. Michal looks up from his feet to his mouth, which is also sort of small, or short, the corners tucked into smile lines so his lower lip pushes out in a permanent pout. Michal has no idea why he’s being weird. “Sorry. What do you want us to call you?”

Most Americans have decided on calling him Mike, so far. “I’m Michal,” he says, and John must be sounding it out in his mind. “My friend call me Miki, though?” They actually call him ‘Answer your damn phone’, most of the time, but John Carlson doesn’t need to know that.

“Cool,” John says, slow. “Cool. Well I sure hope we—all the boys!—will be, so. Oh, I’m sorry, it’s the first day and I’m totally holding you up. We should head back out and see what the boys are up to, right?”

”Right,” Michal says. It should be a lifeline, back to his English comfort zone of repeating other people’s words. But he follows John with a feeling of disappointment, like there was something he meant to say and he missed it, which doesn’t make sense when he didn’t expect this at all. Stepping over the lintel of the locker room he takes a deep breath and shakes it off. It’s not like there was any realistic chance he would have said something.

Practice is okay. Ovechkin finds him again, but instead of any more introductions he drops Michal’s coffee back into his hands and leaves him to lace up. The rest of the boys now clustered around the rink leave him space to take his first couple strides in comparative quiet, the shush of cutting ice rebuilding his protective bubble.

The whistle blows, time to circle up. One of the other defenders in blue flags him down, and Michal skates up beside him. “I’m Matt,” Matt reminds him, and seems content with a nod and smile before they both look away to focus on the stretch routine.

Across the circle John’s got his skates back on, big all over. Michal closes his eyes, then remembers he needs to see the leader for an unfamiliar routine and snaps them open. He’d swear someone laughs, low and just behind him, except when he checks Matt’s frowning furiously into a hamstring stretch. It must have been a stray sound from the fans in the bleachers.

Practice _doesn’t_ shed much light on why a team that has 1 and 2D like Carlson and Orlov wants him in the regular lineup.

Michal and Matt get to rest on the bench after they’ve been put through their paces, watching the top pair scrimmage against Ovechkin’s line. Ovechkin howls to the rafters as Orlov knocks him off the puck and passes to John, who hammers it home. The years they’ve had together show, every movement smoothed. Michal wonders if they’re each other’s soulmates. His gloves are in his lap; he bites his little fingernail and regrets it in a strong, sour shock of salt.

John must have been looking for a reaction from the bench. He looks at Michal like Michal’s lost his mind. Michal pulls his hand away from his mouth and turns it into pointing just in time before Ovechkin, temporary loyalties forgotten, jumps on John from behind.

But Matt is steady, smart on plays but plainly slower than Michal can manage, and they find a solid rhythm. The team seems to, too.

The ride to the airport next morning feels shorter than it should. Michal’s stomach is too tight to drink the cup Ovechkin hands him before hitting the gas, even if he dared to. That’s ridiculous, a voice in the back of his head says, they’re not about to send him packing yet, and he realizes he doesn’t want to leave.

He relaxes as they pull up and park, only to have that existential fear replaced by much more immediate horror. The Caps must have plane seating arrangements.

Ovechkin abandons him, which he expected, rushing off to kiss and compliment Devante on today’s suit and then sitting with Backstrom. Michal looks for Matty, who’s already sitting toward the front and frowning at a novel, but then Orlov tries to cram his overstuffed bag under the seat and Matt reaches to adjust the straps so it fits without looking. Orlov lands in the seat and tips slowly over to rest his head on Matt’s shoulder, apparently without opening his own eyes.

Michal bites his lip and heads to the back.

He passes John, debating something with Coach Todd, no sign of where he’s stowed his things. Oshie and Tarasenko are sharing a row and a muffin, Kuznetsov hanging over the seatback to swipe his share. When Michal approaches he looks up and let himself fall back into his own seat, supervising as Michal takes the empty one beside him and buckles in.

“You,” Kuznetsov says, “are very brave.”

“It just gets easy when you’re scared of everything,” Michal says, which makes him giggle. John must have given up whatever he was discussing and returns to a seat not far in front of them, looking back at the sound. Michal gives him a smile and he holds up his hand, a little finger wave in reply. Kuznetsov opens his bag to reveal an identical muffin, which he splits deliberately in two and offers Michal.

The next few hours are even louder than he could have expected, but after it the obstacle course of the Caps’ pregame feels like no big deal.

They lose, and to the Panthers, and Michal doesn’t help that much, but in the locker room after John claps his hands, as loud as his slapshot cracking, and says, “Only way to go is up, eh?”

Michal could swear he’s looking at him, but the Knockouts must have been listening too. Under a minute into the next game against Buffalo Tarasenko muscles their guy off the puck and passes it to a wheeling Kuznetsov, who passes to Oshie, who pulls in tight to Tarasenko’s side. Kuznetsov closes with them, and the puck bouncing between the three of them finds his feet and then his stick again to bury it. Buffalo always needles back, but Michal can see the plan they’re trying to put together and feels the singing excitement as he throws his skates out from under him and falls into the block.

Together the defense shut them down, and the forwards light them up for five goals. Michal isn’t on ice to help with any of them, though Matt is and John sets up Ovechkin twice, but the whole corps pat him as they pass and Coach Barry tells him he blocked the most shots.

After that it seems like they win, and win, and win.

“You,” Oshie says, “are my little good luck charm, eh? I should’ve known.” Kuznetsov darts in to kiss Michal’s cheek, and while he’s fending him off Tarasenko gets the other. Across the room Ovi and Devante coo in unison and Orlov laughs, but John frowns while pulling off his socks.

Michal doesn’t know what Coach is waiting for. He can’t believe he just thought that, and then he just doesn’t know what to think. But it lingers. Once they’re back in DC at the practice arena, he waits for everyone to break apart doing their own thing on the ice or in the weight room. He changes into his new hoodie and old workout leggings and heads down to the offices, knocking on Coach Todd’s door.

“Just a minute, John,” Coach calls, which confirms something, and then something else entirely when John Carlson’s voice says, “Uh, sure?” behind Michal.

Michal turns around. He’s wearing a soft-looking hoodie this time, hands in the pocket and feet in shoes.

“Hi,” Michal says.

“Hey,” John says.

“You, er, need to talk with Coach?” Michal says, hooking his thumb at the door, as if John needed help finding it. “I just….”

“No, no,” John reassures him. “I mean, he’s basically sick of me talking at this point, he keeps saying I should….” He trails off just like Michal.

Michal thinks about Ovi finding his soulmate, and thinks about that pause. There might be no other way the two of them are comparable, but Michal doesn’t think so. And he promised he was going to try. “You have little bit—” he starts.

“Yeah,” John says.

“—maybe could we get coffee, talk?” Michal says, and then looks at John sideways for the unusual quick response. John shrugs at him, little and lopsided like his smile, and hooks his thumb back toward the stairs.

There’s a coffee shop in the lobby, across from the glass doors of the store, through which Michal could see John’s jersey on prominent display if he turned his head. The counter kid barely opens their eyes at them, and John secures two coffees and empties half the sugar shaker into his before looking to Michal. When Michal smiles, he leads them out into the sudden sunlight of the rooftop parking lot.

February here is nothing like the frozen fields back home, but it’s enough that no sensible fans would wait long outside, and except for a few parents and kids coming or going from a learn to skate class they’re alone. John heads to the concrete rail overlooking the city and sets his coffee down, leaning on it and looking out at the auto shop across the boulevard. Michal copies his pose but takes a swig of his drink, so he can’t talk. It’s not good, mixed sweet and bitter.

“How’s it going settling in?” John asks when Michal’s had time to swallow.

“Nice,” Michal says. “Everything. The city’s nice.”

“Yeah, it is,” John says. “You thinking about finding a place?”

“Probably,” Michal, who has been trying not to worry about it, says. He’ll miss the dogs sleeping on his feet, and some of Ovi’s cooking, and the security of not risking anything. It feels like once he rents an apartment here the Capitals will wake up and remember to send him down, but how things feel isn’t always the way they really are. “You live in the city?”

“Nah. Out in Virginia like Ovi. DC’s great but it’s nice to have the space. A lot of the older guys are out there,” John says, then like he’s trying to slip in a confession, “And I like being close to the water.”

“Oh,” Michal says. Ovi has a big, pretty brick house full of rooms he hasn’t painted, waiting for his soulmate to move in. Oshie and the Russians have kids, and Backstrom wears a flashing ring on his chain. Orlov might be with Matt but for all Michal knows John could have a different partner at home, kids that like that space. “Family?”

“Fuck,” John says, which doesn’t make sense even in this rather thin conversation. Michal turns to look at him as he coughs on his coffee, setting it down. “What?”

“Sorry?” Michal says.

“No, I’m—” John says, then shakes his head.

“I meant—”

“I know,” John says. Impressive, when Michal doesn’t anymore. “I’m sorry, I thought—”

“What?” Michal says, crankier than he means to be, but he just wants someone here to be honest instead of so nice.

“I thought you got that we’re soulmates,” John says. He looks shocked to hear himself, eyes wide and blue but fixed on Michal. “I wanted to wait for something to happen so you wouldn’t think, like, that’s the only reason we want you here. But then Todd said he wouldn’t let me play with you every time I asked and I couldn’t think of a good way to bring it up. Sorry. I thought you got that and wanted to talk about it.”

“What?” Michal says.

“Do you mean you need me to repeat that or just more time?” John says, patient even facing catastrophe, or in this case, Michal.

“No, I—no,” Michal says. He can’t be John’s soulmate, because then John would know all the things Michal has thought and felt about his eyes and kind voice and especially his shoulders. Michal wonders abstractly if he can make himself have one of his episodes just to get out of this conversation, but they never come when it’s convenient and he hasn’t had one the whole time he’s been in DC.

“You’ve been feeling different ever since you came here,” John says. “That means something.”

Michal says, “I don’t….”

“How?” John asks. “Sorry. How is this confusing for you?”

“It’s a very nice city,” Michal says. “I’m very...glad to be here.” 

“You’re happy,” John says, something cracking in his voice, but he keeps it down this time. “Right?” He’s still gazing into Michal’s eyes. It’s easier to look back than almost anything ever feels.

“Maybe,” Michal hedges. That seems to break something delicate, though. John breaks away, rubbing at his eyes and then picking up his coffee. 

“Maybe I should have done what Kuzy said,” he mutters. “Okay. Look…I’m not asking you to believe, but can you close your eyes and really listen? Just for minute.”

Michal does, feeling resigned. This can’t exactly get worse. He waits a moment, a sickly taste filling his mouth, and then he’s just opening it to ask how long he should stay like this when something sears over his chest, burning down his stomach. 

He swears, and so does John. Michal wobbles, steadying himself with a hand on the concrete and assembling the English to ask if John has lost his entire mind. When he opens his eyes John is still standing in front of him, wearing an aggrieved expression and most of a cup of coffee on his shirt. 

Michal checks his hoodie, still fresh.

“First thing you think is hurt yourself?” he demands.

“Now you know what it’s like listening to your brain sometimes,” John says, and looks sheepish. “I’m sorry, that was kinda rude.”

“Oh,” Michal says. “Okay.” He stares at John until a gust of wind stirs both their hair.

“Listen, maybe we can wrap this up inside. Or later, if you need to,” John says. 

“You’re cold,” Michal says, slowly. He can feel it, if he leans to one side of his mind and pokes around.

“It went from really hot to not, quick,” John confirms, crumpling the empty coffee cup and tossing it in a nearby bin, but his mind opens to Michal’s tentative touch and wraps around it, like a handshake or a half-hug. Michal leads the way back, opening the doors for him. John’s hands are sugar-sticky. He smiles at Michal.

The locker room has emptied out. John just stops in the middle of the room and strips his henley off. Michal looks down but John tosses it toward his bag still in his stall and heads toward the sinks. It won’t quite make it, and Michal sticks out an arm to catch. They don’t need to make more work for the cleaning crew. Then he’s left holding a sticky wet wad of fabric he doesn’t quite know how he knew how to catch. 

He drops it in John’s bag with his dirty gear and joins him at the sink, where John is trying to splash water on his chest without soaking his jeans. His skin is pretty pink, but not badly burned. He smiles at Michal for worrying, and backs up enough for Michal to rinse his hands. Then Michal’s hands are wet, and he thinks he could probably help better with that. 

John turns off the tap. He brushes off as much as he can, drops clinging to the short gold curls of his hair, and rubs his hands dry on the thighs of his jeans. “Maybe we could try that again sometime, but less stupid?”

Michal thinks about copying him. He thinks, not for the first time, about kissing him. “I have so much coffee since I come here,” he says. “I think the Russians were trying to help. But more talking, that would be good.”

“Nah. They want you to like it here, just because,” John says, conviction glowing through his mind. “They don’t really know what people do with coffee, but they wanted to think of something you’d want.” 

That’s bold coming from someone who drinks sandy coffee like he never left Massachusetts, a stereotype Michal didn’t know but finds easily in John’s brain and explains several miserable conversations with baristas on road trips to Boston. John knows that he knows that now, so Michal just looks flatly at him, which is enough to make John laugh.

“They’re okay. I never know what I want either,” he says. John, who can feel the outline of whatever Michal does, doesn’t have any more insight. But he does think about a cautious list of things, poking them over the line between their minds: Michal telling Todd that his play shows he should be on the top pairing at practice tomorrow, John calling his father and his incredible number of aunts, a screaming blur of imagined wins, until sometime in the spring it’s warm enough to drive out to John’s favorite part of the shore, pushing through banks of reeds and wild roses to the open sand and sitting there, shoulder to shoulder, as the east wind drives little waves in to land.

“But to start, can I have a hug?” Michal asks, and as if he’s been waiting on the word, John wraps him up like sunlight.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [North, South, East, West](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21555724) by [AetherSeer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AetherSeer/pseuds/AetherSeer)


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